


Bittersweet

by freckliephil



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, fluff with a tiny touch of angst but like its barely there, they're so happy and in love its chill, valentines day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-18 19:03:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13687860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freckliephil/pseuds/freckliephil
Summary: “It’s such a shame that you hate when I give you attention,” Phil says, smirking. “No heart or soul, love is fake and nothing matters, and all that.”“It makes me mysterious.” Dan says, and Phil literally laughs out loud at him, because he’s the worst.“Sure,” Phil patronizes, “But the thing is, I know you actually don’t mind that I’m making sweets, and I know you don’t mind that it’s a surprise. So really you’re just being a brat because it just so happens to be February 14th.”





	Bittersweet

“How many times,” Dan starts, walking into the disaster scene that was once his kitchen, “Do I have to tell you that we’re not the type of couple that celebrates Valentine's Day?”

Phil barely looks up from the bowl he’d been frantically stirring.

“Who’s to say this is for Valentine’s Day?”

“Your hands are dyed red.”

“Red is my color,” Phil says, setting the bowl down. He meets Dan’s eyes dead on, his serious expression not faltering anywhere except his mouth. Dan zeros in on the right corner as it twitches upwards. He sets his own face, knowing his partner well enough to be 100% sure that Phil’s got about 10 more seconds, tops, before he’s hiding a shit-eating grin behind his hand.

Somehow Dan still feels it in his chest when Phil gives into the smile, and his expression softens.

“They’re red velvet cake pops,” he says, gesturing dramatically to the counter. Dan rolls his eyes.

“They’re a mess and so are you,” Dan replies. He moves to go stand next to the counter that is now covered in flour. “Why are you like this? Valentine's Day is, like, objectively the--”

Phil interrupts him by closing the distance between the two of them, sliding a finger in his belt loop and tugging slightly.

“--The worst holiday, yeah, we know. We get it.” Phil says. “This conversation seems oddly familiar… I wonder why...”

He’s smiling fondly, but there’s something else in his expression. Caution, Dan notices, because he’s been in love with Phil for 8 years and sometimes they read each other’s minds. It’s casual.

“And yet, every year…” Dan trails off. They’re both smiles and teasing, but Dan still feels a bit of tension, which makes him feel weird. Phil is holding him close, one hand on Dan’s hip and the other being used to lean on the counter. Phil is looking at him the way he always does, soft and sweet and overwhelming, but the air between them holds something that neither of them are saying, and it settles in Dan’s stomach like a weight.

He could take it back, start reciting one of the many sappy poems from the book Phil got him for christmas. He could easily just shrug and say “Okay, we can have Valentine’s Day, I no longer feel weird about this”. He could turn his face, pull Phil in and distract him with deep kisses and soft touches. Any of these to make Phil’s eyebrow crease less, his eyes to be less intense and staring. He doesn’t, though, because that’s not who he is, or who they are. He’s stubborn and prickly sometimes and Phil has leaned over the years to not take it so personally, just like Dan has learned that talking things through before you feel like screaming and exploding your emotions everywhere saves everyone a lot of trouble.

Plus, post-fight, I’m-so-sorry-I-hurt-you, make-up sex is great, but it’s nothing compared to I-love-you-so-much, thank-you-for-communicating-with-me, we-are-so-on-the-same-page-right-now sex.

“It’s such a shame that you hate when I give you attention,” Phil says, smirking. “No heart or soul, love is fake and nothing matters, and all that.”

“It makes me mysterious.” Dan says, and Phil literally laughs out loud at him, because he’s the worst.

“Sure,” Phil patronizes, “But the thing is, I know you actually don’t mind that I’m making sweets, and I know you don’t mind that it’s a surprise. So really you’re just being a brat because it just so happens to be February 14th.”

And honestly, Phil has got him there. Fuck.

Dan sighs, resolving to admit defeat.

“It’s just,” Dan starts, cursing the lump forming in his throat. This is so silly, and it totally could have been avoided if Phil was just a shit boyfriend and didn’t feel the need to go above and beyond all of Dan’s expectations all the time. “It’s, like, You’ve always been so good at this. And I’ve been sucking at it for years. You know I’m not one to just-- get all sappy and loved up--”

“--I’ll love you up,” Phil interrupts. Dan pushes past it, saves his eye roll for later.

“--Just because of a holiday. I don’t know, it just makes me feel bad. Every year we agree, no Valentines, and then I wake up to you being gross and sappy, and it makes me feel like--” He pauses, realizing that he’s riling himself up and that he needs a breath.

“Feel like what?” Phil asks quietly.

“Like, fuck.” He closes his eyes and steadies himself. He really doesn’t want to be weepy right now, it’s so much harder to talk about things when he’s crying, and he’d really like to tell his therapist on Friday about how great him and Phil are getting at talking through things like this. “It makes me feel like I’m not good at loving you.”

Phil sighs, taking his hand from Dan’s hip and placing both of them on Dan’s cheeks, forcing him to look him in the eyes.

“How many times do _I_ have to tell _you_ that you’re the best at loving me that anyone has ever been?” he asks, his face serious.

“Many,” Dan replies without missing a beat. He may or may not be pouting. “Daily. This is what you signed up for. If you plan on backing out, I would suggest doing so before we sign together on a house next week.”

Phil’s tongue pokes out a bit when he smiles, and Dan’s chest fills with warmth.

“I’m kind of in love with that house, so.” Phil shrugs. He drops his hands back to his side.

“I’m kind of in love with you.”

“Only kind of?”

“You’re on thin ice due to eight consecutive years of unwarranted Valentine’s Day shenanigans.”

“How ever can I make it up to you?” Phil asks, wrapping his arms around Dan’s waist. Dan sighs at the feeling of being held and rests his forehead against Phil’s.

“Let me sit on the counter and watch you while you bake us cake pops?”

Phil grins, “Only if you don’t make it weird by commenting on my ass every time I turn around.”

“Phil.” Dan says seriously, “What is the point of watching you do anything if I can’t comment on your ass?”

He does, in fact, comment on Phil’s ass and all his other features many times throughout the next twenty minutes as Phil blushes through each compliment and mixes the ingredients. Phil pushes his way between Dan’s legs after he puts the dough in the fridge to chill, and they make out for about ten minutes before they get to a point where things are either going to pick up or slow down, and Dan’s butt is starting to crave something more comfortable than the counter. He gently pushes Phil off of him and leads him to the lounge, where Phil flops gracelessly onto the couch and Dan follows suit, draping his legs over Phil’s lap and leaning his back on the arm of the couch.

They watch the season finale of The Good Place, because they’ve been busy, and then talk about the ending for way too long. Eventually, the timer on Phil’s phone goes off and he disappears to the kitchen for 15 minutes. Dan is just about to get up and go help when Phil comes back into the lounge with a tray of un-dipped cake pops on sticks. He sets them down and then comes back with multiple bowls stacked on top of each other, all filled with different sprinkles and decorations. Dan feels so much warmth and love for this dork of a man it hurts.

“Jesus, Phil, how many decorations did you get?”

“Like, the whole baking isle. I’ll eat what we don’t use, don’t you worry.” Dan doesn’t doubt that for a second.

They decorate their dorky cake pops, and Dan is only slightly annoyed that now their coffee table in the lounge is just as much of a mess as their kitchen. Mostly he’s just warm and happy to be popping candy hearts into his mouth and wiping frosting off of Phil’s eyebrow for him because he’s a _mess_.

“These are so much cuter than anything we’ve ever made for a baking video.” Phil says, holding up one of his finished creations for Dan to see. It’s dipped in white chocolate and has been rolled in pink sugar. It is pretty cute.

“Such is life, honestly.” Dan says, opening his mouth as indication that he wants Phil to let him take a bite. Phil obliges, holding it up to Dan’s mouth. Dan, obviously, lets out an over exaggerated moan for no reason other than to rile Phil up.

They spend the next couple hours like that, snuggled up with Netflix and sugary treats and their weirdly half-packed living room. They don’t talk about Valentine’s Day anymore, but not in the way they used to not talk about it. They don’t talk about it because they already did, and they’re fine and happy and in love, today and tomorrow and two years ago and ten years from now.

Ten years from now maybe Dan will have fully embraced the holiday, or maybe Phil will have finally realized that he doesn’t have to keep subtly trying to make up for things he shouldn’t have to apologize for. Dan wishes they didn’t both have a slightly bitter taste on their tongue every time they hear the words “Valentine’s Day”. Because that’s the other, unspoken part of this. The part they’ve actually talked about and mapped out in extreme detail, in his therapists office, and in their bed, and over breakfasts and dinners, and through tears and shaking shoulders. They’ve talked about it enough. They know, and they’re okay now. Phil stopped outright apologizing years ago and Dan realized deep down that he never really blamed Phil in the first place.

It was rough, but it’s not anymore. Just bittersweet.

But Dan also knows that he’s never been this healthy before. He remembers how things used to be between them, even before things got bad. He used to need so much more than he could give, and Phil may have put up with it because they were also so deeply, desperately in love, but they both deserved more from each other than being tolerated. They used to be so willing to just be angry at each other. Dan can’t remember a time in the past few years that he’s been genuinely angry at Phil for longer than two hours. Frustrated, annoyed, wanting to be very far away from him just so he can think, definitely.

Angry, especially like they used to be all the time? No. Usually he just feels comfortable.

Maybe it’s due to maturity, and maybe it’s because they’re pretty successful in life right now. Maybe it’s because Dan made strides to work on himself, and Phil did the same. Maybe, though, it’s because they were so far from happy back then that they had to find their way back, and they had decided to do it together.

He hears Phil snore softly, and it brings him back to earth. He grins, looking at the love of his life as he dozes softly on their couch at 4:28, his shirt wrinkled and a bit of drool on the corner of his open mouth.

He moves to lay his head on Phil’s chest, trying in vain not to wake him. Phil shakes his head suddenly when he feels the weight of Dan moving closer, muttering a soft “Whu-?”

Dan shushes him, closing his own eyes and nuzzling closer. Phil hums and wraps his arms around him.

“Love you,” he says sleepily.

“Love you too.” Dan murmurs, “Happy Valentines day, rat.”

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first fic i've actually uploaded for dnp and i literally did it bc im sad bc my gf has to work on valentines day lol.  
> thanks for reading! also i just made a dnp sideblog like last month despite living in their assholes for like. years. follow me at freckliephil.tumblr.com !


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